


Too Much in This World

by storry_eyed



Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2530559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storry_eyed/pseuds/storry_eyed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You dreamed that I was dead, Josh?! What the hell?” Josh collapsed on the couch. “Sam, can we not do this, please.” “The hell we can’t!” Josh can't sleep because of the nightmares that plague him. Set mid-season two, after Noel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much in This World

It was the worst with Sam.

A lot changed in the months after the shooting. People started treating Josh like he was made of glass, which sometimes he thought he might be. But Josh started treating people differently too. It worried him when he didn’t know where his friends were, when he couldn’t get ahold of them at any time, when they went out for lunch - anything.

But it was the worst with Sam.

The first time it happened, Josh was totally unprepared. Sam had stuck his head into Josh’s office about a week after Christmas, said he was running for lunch because he wanted some fresh air, and asked if Josh wanted to come. Josh said no without even looking up from his desk, and Sam left.

Josh spent the next twenty minutes trying to calm his heart rate and his racing breathing because he couldn’t get the vision of some innocent-looking person pulling out a gun and shooting Sam dead in the middle of a deli. Every time he thought he had it under control his breath would hitch and his mind would betray him and the cycle would start all over again.

Eventually he had to tell Donna to call Bonnie every two minutes until he had confirmation that Sam was back safely.

Josh woke up sweating, face tear-streaked, from his nightmares that night. He spent the rest of the night wrapped in his blankets, with a pot of coffee, trying to figure out what the hell this meant.

The next night, he didn’t sleep. He figured that would make it impossible to have any dreams at all the night after that because he would just be passed out wherever he landed in his apartment.

That night, he dreamed that Sam had been shot walking out of the White House. Two nights after that, he dreamed that Sam had been hit by a car while crossing the street. Two nights after that, he dreamed that Sam had been diagnosed with cancer and had just a few weeks to live. Three nights after that, he didn’t remember his dream, but he remembered waking up screaming.

Josh gave up on sleeping after that. He just watched Sam, not caring if it was strange behavior, only caring that his friend was safe.

~~~

But like he said, other people treated Josh differently too. And it was the worst with Sam.

Sam handed Josh a folder and brushed his hand against Josh’s - an accident certainly, since he apologized and Josh shrugged and they both moved on.

Sam greeted Josh in the morning and squeezed his arm for a few seconds longer than was thought acceptable. It meant nothing, of course.

Sam’s smile when Josh stuck his head in his office was a little too bright; he was a little too quick to put his work aside. Josh was imagining things.

Sam came by his office more than he used to to ask Josh for lunch or coffee or dinner. They were friends; why shouldn’t he ask?

Sam asked his opinion more quickly, took it as truth more fully, in meetings than he had before. Technically Josh was his superior, so wasn’t that how it should be?

~~~

It was the nightmares, he told himself. The nightmares that appeared without fail on the nights that he could actually sleep and that showed him all the creative ways his subconscious could think up to kill Sam. The shooting and the sleepless nights and the pain and the stiffness that doctors told him would probably never go away and the PTSD that he would be living with forever; the finality of everything was making him crazy. Because Sam was everywhere and the dark half-moons under their - under his, Josh’s, he wasn’t paying attention to Sam’s - eyes just kept getting more and more pronounced and there was no way it wasn’t just the sleep deprivation that made him think Sam was trying to give him some sort of sign.

It got bigger that night he fell asleep in his office and woke up crying over a nightmare of Sam getting hit by a drunk driver because Sam was gently shaking his shoulder and running his hand over Josh’s back to wake him.

“Josh, hey, sorry buddy, I know you’re tired, but I need your help with - Josh?”

Josh blinked, trying to figure out where he was, unable to process that Sam, whose dead body in the street he had just been staring at, was standing alive and well before him. 

“Josh? What wrong - wait, are you crying? Josh?”

Josh threw his arms around Sam’s middle and pressed his face against Sam’s stomach.

Sam’s hands rested hesitantly on Josh’s back. “Josh?”

“You were dead,” Josh mumbled.

“What?”

“You were dead,” he repeated, more loudly.

“When?”

Silence.

“Josh? When was I dead.”

“Never mind!” Josh murmured, pulling back as he realized it had only been a dream, and that he had just subjected his best friend to an extremely awkward hug. “Never mind. It's not important. It was just a dream. It doesn’t matter. What’s going on?”

Sam was staring at him in horror. “You dreamed that I was dead?”

“Yeah, look, don’t worry about it. What did you need my help with?”

“What did I - Josh - what - that I was dead? How often?”

Josh blinked at him some more. “Nice oratory.” He hoped his voice sounded normal and not watery. Sam’s face was like thunder.

“I’m taking you home,” said Sam, grabbing Josh’s coat and pulling him to his feet. “And then I’m getting the number of that psychiatrist you’ve been seeing from Donna and you’re gonna call him.”

“Sam, I”m not gonna call him. It’s-” Josh peered at his watch. “It’s one in the morning.”

“Do I look like I care?!” Sam’s voice was rising with every word. “How long has this been happening? Are you even sleeping at all?”

“...Not really.”

Sam muttered several expletives under his breath and shoved Josh’s coat into his arms just at Toby appeared at the door, eyebrows raised.

“Why are you both still here?”

“Why are you still here?” asked Josh, fumbling with his coat.

“We’re not,” Sam said shortly. “I’m taking Josh home.”

“That’s not information that I needed to know, Sam.”

“To force him to go to sleep, God, Toby,” Sam growled.

“Good idea,” said Toby quietly, looking at Josh as he stared out the window at nothing in particular. “Don’t come in tomorrow, okay?”

“Tomorrow is Saturday, Toby.”

“So, don’t come in tomorrow.”

Sam looked at Josh, too. “Yeah, okay.” He raised his voice. “Let’s go, Josh.”

Josh followed him quietly out the door, into a cab, and into his apartment. He didn’t even bother wondering how Sam had gotten a key. 

He also didn’t bother wondering why Sam was stripping him down to his boxers and undershirt and pushing him into bed. He didn’t bother wondering why he whispered, “don’t go,” when Sam tried to walk out of the room. He didn’t bother wondering why Sam stayed.

~~~

Josh woke up the next morning to sunlight streaming through the window and a ball of lead in his stomach. He’d just gotten the best night of sleep he’d had in months, and he felt the worst.

Sam wasn’t there.

Except he was, because when Josh opened his bedroom door, there was a pot of coffee made, and there was milk sitting out on the counter, and there was Sam, sitting on his couch watching CNN.

For a minute, Josh just stood and looked at him, sitting there, on his couch, whole and unharmed, drinking coffee like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Because maybe it was.

“Hey,” Josh said hoarsely.

Sam spun around, almost spilling the coffee. “Hey.”

Silence sat between them.

“I figured it would be best to just let you sleep,” Sam offered. “Toby made me promise that neither of us would come into the office today.”

There was a pause.

“Okay.”

Silence.

Then-

“You dreamed that I was dead, Josh?! What the hell?”

Josh collapsed on the couch. “Sam, can we not do this, please-”

“The hell we can’t!”

“Sam-”

“JOSH!”

“I’M SCARED!” 

Sam shut up.

“I’m scared, okay? I’m scared of something happening to you.” Josh dearly, dearly wanted to shut up, but his mouth seemed to have disconnected itself from all cognitive functions. “Every night when I sleep I dream of you dying in some new way, so I don’t sleep, except sometimes I can’t help it because as it turns out I’m just a normal human being and if something were ever to happen to you I wouldn’t be able to save you and I can’t- I can’t, without you, Sam, I just can’t.”

Sam put his hands on both of Josh’s shoulders. “Josh. Nothing’s going to happen to me-”

“Oh, what, like the shooting? You think that was supposed to happen?”

“No. But Josh-”

Josh kissed him.

Sam’s lips were warm, and they were soft, and Sam belonged to Josh, how could they not have done this before, it was so right. Sam’s arms tightened on Josh’s shoulders and his teeth scraped Josh’s lip and Josh made a keening sound, yanking Sam closer to him, and there was the sound of a forgotten coffee mug smashing to the floor and it was that which drew them both back to reality.

Josh wrenched himself away from Sam and to the other end of the couch. Sam’s hair was mussed and his lips were parted and he stared at Josh, chest heaving.

Josh had no idea what was about to happen next, but bursting into tears would not have been high on his list of guesses.

Out of nowhere, he began to sob. His vision blurred with tears and his body shook and all he heard was a litany of “I love you, don’t leave me, I love you, don’t leave me,” pushed out of his body with each breath.

And then Sam’s arms were around him, strong and warm, and he was crooning, “I love you, Josh, I love you, Josh,” again and again and again.

“I could sleep - when you were here - I could sleep,” Josh managed to say.

Sam smoothed his hair. “I know. I’m not going anywhere Josh, I’m staying right here with you. You can sleep now. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

And as Josh cried, for one tiny second, he let himself believe it. Because Sam had stayed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work written in the world of The West Wing. My thanks to those who read it! Title comes from the song "New York Minute."


End file.
